Page 251 of Saving Forever with the Hockey Captain

I've spent eight weeks believing Annette had walked away from me.

What if she'd been trying to save me instead?

Annette spent months teaching me that healing meant asking for help.

Then she carried this alone.

Chapter thirty-one

Annette

Regret

Idaho feels different.

Not because the mountains are unfamiliar.

Not because the hospital is larger than Briar Cove General.

Because every hallway reminds me of one I left behind.

The Boise Regional Spinal Rehabilitation Center occupies three floors of the university medical campus main building.

Bright windows.

Wide therapy gyms.

Patients learning to sit.

Stand.

Walk.

Live again.

On paper it's exactly where I always dreamed I'd end up.

Dr. Lawson meets me outside the rehabilitation unit. "You must be Annette Whittier."

I shake his hand.

"Welcome to Boise." He gives me a quick tour, introducing therapists, nurses, physicians, and residents whose names I know I won't remember by lunchtime.

Everyone smiles.

Everyone is kind.

Everyone tells me how much I'm going to love working here.

They're probably right. That somehow makes it worse.

***

My first patient is nineteen years old.

A college baseball player, three weeks removed from a spinal cord injury.

He's angry.